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| A couple: Image for representational purpose only |
The high level police officers of the Meghalaya State of India say the murder of the newlywed Raja Raghuvanshi in Meghalaya during honeymoon with his wife, Sonam, on 23rd May was planned and executed by his wife, her boyfriend and three contracted assailants. It has been reported that Sonam had told her mother that her boyfriend is an employee in their family business in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and warned that her mother and the rest of the family would face consequences for their action of making her wed Raja Raghuvanshi, from another business family of Indore.
The main cause of the crimes seems to be the mediaeval-age compulsion in marriage still being imposed on women by their families in India. Hardly a month passes without the news of a bride eloping or a wife murdering the husband to live freely with her paramour. The Laila-Majnu or Romeo-Juliet era of lovers dying heartbroken or taking their own lives rather than live with spouses not of their choice seems past now as women are regaining knowledge, skills and financial independence at par with men, rightly. Now, when forced to marry someone other than their choice, she elopes, or, if that may result in loss of finance and inheritance, she might marry and then, with her lover, murder the husband to live happily ever after. What appears in the media are only such crimes that were found out, but there may be innumerable successful crimes always happening. So, we may be seeing only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
I believe that, psychologically, the woman has the capacity to know better than anybody else who is the right mate or partner or husband for her. Unless the tradition-bound families grant their young women the freedom of choice, whether it is live-in relationships or marriages, disasters like the Sonam-Raghuvanshi non-marriage may continue to happen.
The change has to come from within the society, and it is of little practical use to expect deliverance from government or judiciary in this matter because, by default, they tend to side with “traditions” and “status quo”. Coincidentally, while the government launched Operation Sindhoor, named after a symbol of the Hindu institution of marriage, against Pakistan last month for killing 22 Hindu Indian tourists by terrorists, on its wake, a Hindu "woman interrupted" launched Operation Honeymoon, disregarding the very basis of that institution.